• Pantagruel
    3.2k
    I thought I'd share some quotable quips as I encounter them in the Essays of (from the 2003 printing of M.A. Screech's 1987 translation):

    Nothing is really in our power but our will.... P. 28

    where I seek myself I cannot find myself; I discover myself more by accident, than by inquiring into my judgement. p. 40

    a powerful imagination generates the event. p. 109

    in the study I am making of our manners and our motives, fabulous testimonies - provided they remain possible - can do service as well as true ones. p. 119

    Only fools have made up their minds and are certain. p. 170

    I cannot believe...that reason cannot produce the same effects as habit....
    Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, p. 273

    "Does knowing mean nothing to you, unless somebody else knows that you know it?"
    Persius - cited p. 274
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    "He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear." ~Michel de Montaigne
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    :up:

    ...there is no more reliable witness than each man is to himself. p. 711

    Since men are not intelligent enough to be adequately paid in good coin let counterfeit coin be used as well. p. 715
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    I am loath even to have thoughts which I cannot publish. p. 953

    Now there's a standard
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    He who does not live at all for others hardly lives at all for himself p. 1138
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    ...things are sensed through the understanding, understood through the senses. p. 1257
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    Just crossed paths with this one. To me, it seems more forceful if you drop the final, "from his fear": he who fears suffering already suffers.... It kind of like, when something is translated from one language to another, the translator can take liberties in search of the best meaning. Well, even speaking and hearing can be viewed as a kind of translation (of separate viewpoints). In fact, I just passed another comment where Montaigne says that words belong half to the speaker and half to the listener....

    :)
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